Rick Mercer rants about the so called 'Fair Elections Act'

Do you ever have those days where you feel like there’s a higher power who's entire purpose is to constantly test your grip on reality? You know those days when you wake up and hear that Pierre Poilievre has been chosen by Prime Minister Harper to reform democracy in Canada. I mean on a day like that, it’s entirely normal to think I must be hallucinating. Because I guarantee you, you get any member of the Conservative caucus alone in a room and you ask them who is the last man on earth who should be put in charge of reforming democracy and they will tell you Pierre Poilievre. 

But the Prime Minister gave him a job to do and boy has he done it. He has tabled the Fair Elections Act. And I promise you, if you read this bill you will feel like you have left Canada and slipped into a parallel universe. When this bill passes it will be illegal for elections Canada to encourage young people to vote. Because, well, there's the problem right there, isn’t it? I mean you get young people voting, next thing you know you have an entire generation of informed citizens running around taking part in democracy and feeling a real ownership in Canada. 

Now if you ask the government they will tell you voter turnout in Canada is at a historic low and therefore that's proof that encouraging people to vote does not work. Not true. People do not vote because they look at the way that politics is being performed in Canada and they feel like they’ve been given a feed of bad oysters. After that, they just avoid the buffet altogether. 

Canadians, we love to brag that we are one of the world's greatest democracies. If we abandon the principal that voting is important and must be encouraged, we forfeit the title.